Chapter Three: Procedures and MethodologyIntroduction The goal of education is to increase student achievement and knowledge of the material being taught. It is imperative that, if this is the real goal of education, search for best practices that assist in increasing student achievement. While many different aspects impact student achievement, expanding the practice efforts of educators to help in the classroom is beneficial (Tucker & Strange, 2020). The idea for the study focused around the theory, while it may be considered old by many in education today, from Benjamin Bloom and mastery learning and the utilization of formative assessments and individualized learning to drive instruction (Guskey, 2010). The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine the strength and nature of the relationship between the level of implementation of the diagnostic assessment software PowerSchool and student achievement on the eighth-grade mathematics TCAP test in a semi-rural system in northeast Tennessee. The target system for this study served a total enrollment of 5,290 students, grades pre-k through grade 12, and consists of 15 schools and one alternative placement setting. While many of the schools from the target district are considered to perform at proficient levels for student achievement, others in the system are or are in danger of becoming target schools by the Tennessee Department of Education based on student achievement. As with all public schools in the state of Tennessee, all third through eighth-grade students in the target district partake in yearly TCAP testing in ELA, mathematics, science, and social studies. As discussed in Chapter 2, TCAP is a criterion-referenced assessment that, when coupled with TVAAS and value-added, is a reliable and valuable source of data for educators statewide. Chapter 3 discusses the methodology of the research as well as the utilization of the TCAP and TVAAS as sources of data. The chapter begins with an introduction and research paradigm and design before moving through the sampling procedures, data collection sources, statistical tests being utilized, and a summary of the chapter. Research Paradigm The review of the literature discussed in Chapter two explained how the use of formative assessments and mastery learning could be used to increase student achievement. Furthermore, as mentioned in Chapter One, the state of Tennessee, as well as the nation, is facing a crisis with a large percentage of today’s students performing below grade-level expectations. For this reason, systems nationwide have implemented programs specifically for assisting in increasing student achievement in mathematics such as Response to Intervention (RTI), and continual search for programs that can further help in this goal of improving student achievement and understanding in mathematics. The goal of this study was to investigate the relationship between the level of implementation of the diagnostic assessment softwa ...

1. Chapter Three: Procedures and MethodologyIntroduction
The goal of education is to increase student achievement
and knowledge of the material being taught. It is imperative
that, if this is the real goal of education, search for best
practices that assist in increasing student achievement. While
many different aspects impact student achievement, expanding
the practice efforts of educators to help in the classroom is
beneficial (Tucker & Strange, 2020). The idea for the study
focused around the theory, while it may be considered old by
many in education today, from Benjamin Bloom and mastery
learning and the utilization of formative assessments and
individualized learning to drive instruction (Guskey, 2010). The
purpose of this quantitative study was to determine the strength
and nature of the relationship between the level of
implementation of the diagnostic assessment software
PowerSchool and student achievement on the eighth-grade
mathematics TCAP test in a semi-rural system in northeast
Tennessee.
The target system for this study served a total enrollment
of 5,290 students, grades pre-k through grade 12, and consists
of 15 schools and one alternative placement setting. While many
of the schools from the target district are considered to perform
at proficient levels for student achievement, others in the
system are or are in danger of becoming target schools by the
Tennessee Department of Education based on student
achievement. As with all public schools in the state of
Tennessee, all third through eighth-grade students in the target
district partake in yearly TCAP testing in ELA, mathematics,
science, and social studies. As discussed in Chapter 2, TCAP is
a criterion-referenced assessment that, when coupled with
TVAAS and value-added, is a reliable and valuable source of
data for educators statewide. Chapter 3 discusses the
methodology of the research as well as the utilization of the
TCAP and TVAAS as sources of data. The chapter begins with

2. an introduction and research paradigm and design before
moving through the sampling procedures, data collection
sources, statistical tests being utilized, and a summary of the
chapter.
Research Paradigm
The review of the literature discussed in Chapter two
explained how the use of formative assessments and master y
learning could be used to increase student achievement.
Furthermore, as mentioned in Chapter One, the state of
Tennessee, as well as the nation, is facing a crisis with a large
percentage of today’s students performing below grade-level
expectations. For this reason, systems nationwide have
implemented programs specifically for assisting in increasing
student achievement in mathematics such as Response to
Intervention (RTI), and continual search for programs that can
further help in this goal of improving student achievement and
understanding in mathematics.
The goal of this study was to investigate the relationship
between the level of implementation of the diagnostic
assessment software PowerSchool and student achievement in
eighth-grade mathematics in a semi-rural northeast Tennessee
school system. A quantitative study was chosen for the study
since quantitative research “entails the collection of numerical
data and exhibiting the view of the relationship between theory
and research as deductive, a predilection for natural science
approach, and as having an objectivist conception of social
reality” (Bryman & Bell, 2015, p. 160). The dependent variables
for this quantitative study focused on the student different data
on achievement results based on the eighth grade Tennessee
Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) performed in the
spring semester of the 2020-2021 school year. The independent
variable was based on the different levels of implementation of
the diagnostic assessment software PowerSchool during the
2020-2021 school year in a school district in semi-rural
northeast Tennessee.

3. Research Design
The research design for this study includes a correlation
design utilizing the independent samples t-test and Chi-square
to measure the strength and nature of the relationship between
student achievement and the level of implementation of
PowerSchool. A correlation design was chosen due to the desire
to realize if and how strong of a relationship exists between the
level of implementation and student achievement. One group of
classes uses PowerSchool as merely a benchmark testing,
making up less than five percent of the time spent utilizing
PowerSchool for instructional purposes. In contrast, the second
group not only uses PowerSchool for the system-wide
benchmark testing but also weekly as formative assessments to
drive the daily instruction, making up 50% or more of
instructional time spent utilizing PowerSchool for instructional
purposes. The research used the PowerSchool program,
including criterion-referenced benchmark exams based on
Tennessee state standards provided through the program, as well
as a second criterion-based test in the Tennessee Comprehensive
Assessment Program (TCAP) during the 2020-2021 school year.
PowerSchool was implemented through an online platform
inside the individual classrooms as well as home access
provided at home. The TCAP test was presented in the paper -
pencil format during Spring 2021 by exiting eighth-grade
students in Northeastern Tennessee.
The researcher chose three different sources to serve as
dependent variables, one for each research question, and one for
the independent variable for each. The dependent variables were
based on the different degrees of measure of student
achievement on the 8th grade TCAP mathema tics test:
individual composite scores, TVAAS value-added for each
teacher participating in the study based on TCAP scores, and
the level of achievement of each student. The basis for the
independent variable was the two levels of implementation of
the diagnostic assessment software PowerSchool: a full

4. implementation that was used to drive the curriculum and
implementation for benchmark testing purposes only.
Sampling Procedures
Prior to conducting this study, approval was asked for and
obtained from the University of the Cumberlands Institutional
Review Board (IRB). The target school system chosen for this
study has acknowledged that a problem exists with student
achievement in TCAP testing, especially in middle school
mathematics. For this reason, the system implemented the
mandatory use of benchmark testing (three total tests
throughout the school year) utilizing the PowerSchool software
system-wide during the 2019-2020 school year. Permission was
granted to conduct research through the district in question by
the curriculum supervisor (see Appendix A).
The targeted semi-rural district located in northeast Tennessee
was relatively large for a single district. According to data
obtained from the personnel department of the target school
district, during the 2020-2021 school year, the district employed
473 professional employees: 10 supervisors, 16 principals, eight
assistant principals, 18 system-wide support supervisors
(curriculum coaches, testing coordinators, etc.), and 421
classroom teacher. Furthermore, the targeted district consists of
15 schools serving students in grades pre-kindergarten – twelfth
grade and one alternative placement school. The 15 schools
served 5,290 total students containing 756 students that qualify
for special education services. The system is considered “direct
serve,” which indicates all students kindergarten – eighth grade
receive free breakfast and lunch. Each school in the system
qualifies as Title 1 schools. The percentage of the ethnic
diversity of the 5,290 total students served during the 2020-
2021 school year consisted of 95.7% Caucasian, 2.28%
Hispanic, and 2.02% identifying as other.
Due to the nature of the study, a non-random, convenience
sampling method was chosen for participants. Convenience
samples are defined as the “non-probability sampling method

5. that relies on data collection from population members who are
conveniently available to participate in the study”
(Convenience, 2019). Because convenience sampling was
utilized for this study, the study lacks the desired trait of
randomness in sampling. However, the purpose of this study
was to identify if a relationship between the level of
implementation of the diagnostic assessment software
PowerSchool in a local northeast Tennessee school system, thus
the research and results may not produce data that can be
generalized to an overall population. Furthermore, including all
eighth-grade students in the targeted district helps to strengthen
the validity of the study.
The targeted system consists of seven middle schools, three of
which implementing full PowerSchool (50% of instruction)
classified as Group X and five only utilizing the program for
benchmark tests only ( less than 5% of instruction time)
classified as Group Y. The convenience of using all seven
middle schools was appropriate. Of the 5,290 total students
served by the district, 404 students were served in eighth grade,
represented 8.37 % of the population. For this study, the eighth
grades were separated into two groups: Group X consisted of
188 individual students ( n = 188) and four teachers, and Group
Y consisted of 216 individual students (n = 216) and four
teachers.
Data Collection Sources
This study based the collection of data primarily from the
results of the eighth grade Tennessee Comprehensive
Assessment Program (TCAP) as well as the value-added results
formulated from TVAAS. As previously discussed, the TCAP
assessment is assumed to be valid and reliable criterion-based.
The TCAP assessments will be completed during April 2021,
and results will be finalized and reported back to the system
during the summer of 2021. TCAP testing is implemented for all
students grades three through eight throughout the state of
Tennessee. Once the results are reported back to the system,

6. the system will contact the researcher and provide access to the
student’s results in coded form for each individual that are part
of the study.
The TCAP test provided the overall composite scores in
the subject of mathematics for each student as well as their
individual level of achievement. Figure 1 shows an example of
the reporting data provided by the TCAP for each student.
Figure 1 Individual student TCAP report
The data received from the TCAP results, as well as the TVAAS
value-added reporting for each student and teacher involved in
the study were then collected, coded, and organized.
The data was collected from the testing department of the
targeted school system. In order to prevent bias testing, the data
was organized into two groups based on the level of
implementation in the study: Group X (full implementation) and
Group Y (benchmark utilization only). The testing department
also provided the data in each group without the individual
names of teachers, students, schools, or any other personal data
that could be used as identifying markers. The student’s data
were numbered using three-digit codes beginning with 001 for
the analysis of the composite scores as well as the level of
achievement and value-added data. Table 1, 2, and 3 represents
the manner in which the researcher organized the data.
Table 1. Group X student TCAP data for the 2020-2021 school
year.
Student
Composite
Score
Equivalent Level of Achievement
Amount of
Value-added
001

7. 002
003
…
Table 2. Group Y student TCAP data for 2020-2021 school year.
Student
Composite
Score
Equivalent Level of Achievement
Amount of
Value-added
001
002
003
…

8. Table 3. The number of students in each level of achievement
for both Group X and Group Y on the TCAP test for the 2020-
2021 school year.
Level 1:
Below
Level 2:
Approaching
Level 3:
On Track
Level 4:
Mastery
Group X
Group Y
This method of data collection was chosen in hopes of
maintaining confidentiality as well as preventing any bias
results from the study.
Statistical Tests
The researcher utilized descriptive and inferential data to
analyze the data for this quantitative study to determine if a
significant difference exists. The researcher performed
independent sample t-tests to analyze the individual student
composite scores provided by performance on the TCAP test as
well as the amount of value that was provided by the TVAAS

9. value-added report. According to SPSS, independent samples t-
test is utilized to compare “the means of two independent
groups to determine whether there is statistical evidence that the
associated population means are significantly different” (2020).
The researcher chose to perform Chi-square to determine if a
significant distance exists between the in the number of students
in each level of achievement on the 8th Grade TCAP test
(Below, Approaching, On Track, Mastered) between classes
with different levels of PowerSchool implementation (full
implementation as opposed to benchmark usage only). For all
three tests, the data was analyzed with a confidence level set at
p = 0.05 to determine if a significant difference exists. Table 4
represents the data collection and statistical test matrix the
researcher utilized for this study.
Table 4. Data collection and statistical test matrix.
Research Question
Data Collection Sources
Statistical Test
Is there a significant difference in the Tennessee
Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) 8th Grade
composite math scores between classes with different levels of
PowerSchool implementation (full implementation as opposed
to benchmark usage only) in a northeastern Tennessee school
district?
TCAP (Composite mathematics score)
Independent samples t-test
(correlation)
Is there a significant difference in the number of students at
each level of achievement on the 8th Grade TCAP test (Below,
Approaching, On Track, Mastered) between classes with
different levels of PowerSchool implementation (full
implementation as opposed to benchmark usage only) in a
northeastern Tennessee school district?
TCAP (level of

10. achievement)
Chi-square
(correlation)
Is there a significant difference in the amount of value-added on
the 8th Grade TCAP test among classes with different levels of
PowerSchool implementation (full implementation as opposed
to benchmark usage only) in a northeastern Tennessee school
district?
TVAAS (amount of value-added)
Independent samples t-test
(correlation)
Summary
As previously discussed in Chapter 2, an increase in
accountability for student learning as well as teacher effect on
student learning has caused schools to search for systematic
solutions to assist in increasing student achievement. The
system-wide implementation of the use of PowerSchool for
benchmark testing in mathematics (one given at the end of each
of the first three, nine-week grading periods) took place during
the 2019-2020 school year. As per the state of Tennessee
policy, the targeted district partakes in the yearly end of the
school year, criterion-referenced TCAP testing. This
assessment, along with TVAAS, provides individualized student
composite scores, level of achievement (one-four), and value-
added data. The entire number of students in eighth-grade
mathematics in the targeted district was utilized for this study.
The students were separated into two groups: Group X (full
implementation of PowerSchool) and Group Y (benchmark
testing only).
This chapter presented the research design, sample procedures,
data collection sources, and type of statistical testing used to
analyze the data. Furthermore, the research paradigm was
presented and discussed. This study’s results were obtained

11. through quantitative data produced from TCAP scores of eighth-
grade students in a northeast Tennessee school district. The
study consisted of the three following research question:
1. Is there a significant difference in the Tennessee
Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) 8th Grade
composite math scores between classes with different levels of
PowerSchool implementation (full implementation as opposed
to benchmark usage only) in a northeastern Tennessee school
district?
2. Is there a significant difference in the number of students at
each level of achievement on the 8th Grade TCAP test (Below,
Approaching, On Track, Mastered) between classes with
different levels of PowerSchool implementation (full
implementation as opposed to benchmark usage only) in a
northeastern Tennessee school district?
3. Is there a significant difference in the amount of value-added
on the 8th Grade TCAP test among classes with different levels
of PowerSchool implementation (full implementation as
opposed to benchmark usage only) in a northeastern Tennessee
school district?
The analysis of the data collected from the study is contained in
Chapter 4 through explanation of how the independent sample t-
tests as well as the Chi-square were utilized as well as
representation of the process and data provided during the
study. The results will be compared used a standard of p = 0.05
to determine if a significant difference exists.

12. References
Bryman, A., & Bell, E. (2015). Business Research Methods (4th
ed., p. 160). Oxford, England:
Oxford University Press.
Convenience sampling . (2019). In Research Methodology.
Retrieved from https://research-
methodology.net/sampling-in-primary-data-
collection/convenience-sampling/
Guide to test interpretation 2019-2020 TCAP assessment.
(2019). In Tennessee Department of
Education. Retrieved from
https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/education/testing/
TN1124053_TCAP_EOC_GTI_WEBTAG.pdf
Guskey, T. R. (2010, October). Lessons of mastery
learning. Educational Leadership, 68(2), 52-
57.
SPSS tutorials: independent samples t-test. (2020, March 24).
In Kent State University:
University Libraries. Retrieved
fromhttps://libguides.library.kent.edu/SPSS/Independent
TTest
Tucker, P. D., & Strange, J. H. (2020). Linking teacher
evaluations and student learning.
In ASDC. Retrieved from
http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/104136/chapters/The-
Power-of-an-Effective-Teacher-and-Why-We-Should-Assess-
It.aspx
Hoover, J. (2013). Rereading the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights: plurality and contestation,

13. not consensus. Journal of Human Rights, 12(2), doi:
10.1080/14754835.2013.784663
<http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14754835.2013.784663>
City Research Online
Original citation: Hoover, J. (2013). Rereading the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights: plurality
and contestation, not consensus. Journal of Human Rights,
12(2), doi:
10.1080/14754835.2013.784663
<http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14754835.2013.784663>
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1
Rereading the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Plurality
and Contestation, not
Consensus
Dr Joe Hoover
International Relations Department, LSE
Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE
[email protected]
+44 (0)207 955 7389 (work)

15. +44 (0)207 955 7446 (fax)
+44 (0)7775 430 520 (mobile)
2

16. Author Biography:
Joe Hoover is a Fellow in the Department of International
Relations at the London School of
Economics and Political Science. His research focuses on gl obal
ethics and international political
theory, particularly the importance of human rights in world
politics, both in international law and
global social movements. He has published work in
International Theory, Human Rights Review,
The Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, International
Affairs, Millennium: Journal of
International Studies and The Journal of Critical Globalisation
Studies.

17. 3
Abstract:
In this paper I examine the drafting of the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights. My analysis
counters conventional narratives of consensus and imposition
that characterize the development of
the UN human rights regime. The central argument is that

18. within the founding text of the
contemporary human rights movement there is an ambiguous
account of rights, which exceeds easy
categorization of international rights as universal moral
principles or merely an ideological
imposition by liberal powers. Acknowledging this ambiguous
history, I argue, opens the way to an
understanding of human rights as an ongoing politics, a
contestation over the terms of legitimate
political authority and the meaning of “humanity” as a political
identity

19. 4
Rereading the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Plurality
and Contestation, not
Consensus
1. Reading the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
While human rights have long provided a vision for improving
social life, the conventional
conception of those rights has been as universal moral
principles based on each individual’s
inherent dignity, which make clear the requirements of any and
all legitimate political authority.

20. From the natural law tradition offering universal standards
constraining all sovereigns
(Koskenniemi 2009; Finnis 2011), to modern “political”
accounts of international human rights
drawing limits around the state’s right to self-determination
(Baynes 2009), our understanding of
human rights is dominated by a legislative conception of rights.
This legislative conception starts
from some set of foundational moral principles – arrived at by
divine dictate, transcendental reason,
constitutional authority, etc. – that then form the basis for
legitimate law and provide an authority
beyond the political.1 The legislative conception of universal
human rights has been subjected to
criticisms that it reinforces rather than challenges state power,
bolsters an objectionable liberal-
capitalist order, and neglects the violence done to difference by
Eurocentric accounts of human
nature (Douzinas 2002; Evans 2005; Tascon and Ife 2008; Žižek
2005). It has also been revised
repeatedly to take account of these objections (Ackerly 2008;
Benhabib 2008; Cohen 2004;
Langlois 2002). At the centre of this still-ongoing debate is the
unavoidable claim – inherent to the

21. legislative conception of human rights – that humanity has a
common, and perhaps singular, moral
nature, shared by each of us, which provides a universal
standard that all political authorities should
meet. The persistence of ethical diversity threatens to reduce
this moral authority to mere coercion
and imposition, to make human rights an imperial ideology
(Pagden 2003). It is in front of this
conceptual backdrop that the ratification of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is
taken to represent a vital moment of consensus that provides the
authority necessary to the
legislative conception of human rights. Critics, however, call
our attention to the shadow cast by the
historical imposition of human rights as an ideology justifying
Western political dominance and
5
marginalizing weaker states and non-Western societies (Mutua
2002). Yet, we need not be confined
to such accounts of the UDHR’s significance if we reconsider
our understanding of human rights,
which in turn alters the contemporary relevance of the UDHR.

22. In contrast to the legislative account of human rights, we can
see an emerging agonistic
understanding that focuses on the use of rights as contentious
political claims that demand social
transformation (Honig 2009; Hoover and Iñiguez De Heredia
2011; Schaap 2011).2 This
understanding is based on the use of human rights as a political
tool, particularly by social
movements that challenge institutionalized authority with new
rights claims (Goodale 2009; Hunt
2008; Stammers 2009). An agonistic understanding of human
rights places the plurality and
discontinuity of rights claims at the fore, focusing on the way
rights open up new political
possibilities, in contrast to the legislative understanding that
focuses on delimiting a core set of
rights that constrains authority. Political theorist Bonnie Honig
argues that legislative accounts of
human rights ‘invite us to assess new rights-claims as judges
would – in terms of their analogical fit
to previous ones, of the appositeness of the claim to legitimate
subsumption under existing higher
law (whether constitutional or universal) in a gradually
unfolding linear time, of whether the new

23. rights were in nascent from always already’ part of the human
rights ideal (2008, 104–105). An
agonistic understanding of rights shifts our focus, and as Honig
suggests, ‘there is another way to
think about some of these emergent rights, in relation to
different contexts, not against the backdrop
of the increasing universalization of rights as such but rather in
relation to a politics of rights and a
politics of foreignness that might (yet) go lots of different
ways.’ (Honig 2008, 95) Rethinking
rights and rereading the UDHR as agonistic provides us with an
alternate way of understanding
human rights, an alternative that focuses on contesta tion and
discontinuity.
Human rights entail a particular logic, which shapes the
politics that emerges. Human rights
make use of the category of humanity to make a moral claim
upon the legitimate organization of
social life – these claims are formally universal in reference and
global in scope, but the nature of
these claims is not fixed. A legislative account of human rights
presumes some final and

24. 6
fundamental universality to human identity. If we instead view
human rights agonistically, rights
claims open up a contest over the significance of humanity as an
identity, which places the question
of legitimate social organization into a global context, but
without presuming that there is a single
or final set of rights, nor a single form that legitimate political
authority must take. The central
purpose of this article is to suggest that if we think of human
rights differently, such that ‘[e]ach new
right inaugurates a new world’ (Honig 2008, 104), then the
historical meaning of the drafting of the
UDHR changes. A further purpose is to attend to the details of
the drafting of the UDHR as an act
of claiming human rights, so that it can inform an agonistic
understanding of human rights. Before
turning to an analysis of the drafting of the UDHR, I consider
both the conventional significance it
has for supporters and critics, and the general question of how
the history of human rights has been
understood.
Our understanding of the significance of the UDHR tends to
oscillate between two poles: on

25. one side it can be seen as a moment of founding for the human
rights regime, based on the
documents unique status as a symbol of moral consensus (Cerna
1994, 740–752), while on the other
hand it can be seen as a political imposition by the post-war
liberal powers intent upon remaking
the international order in their image (Mutua 2007, 552–555).
Forty-five years ago, on 10 December 1948, the international
community adopted by
consensus, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, still the
preeminent
document in the growing corpus of human rights instruments.
Today, a group of
nations is seeking to redefine the content of the term “human
rights” against the will
of the Western states. This group sees the current definition as
part of the ideological
patrimony of Western civilization. They argue that the
principles enshrined in the
Universal Declaration reflect Western values and not their own.
(Cerna 1994, 740)
The UDHR has a special status in either narrative, but my
primary task is to upset these competing
narratives and the legislative understanding of rights that makes
them plausible. Many histories of
the UDHR have been written, all of them acknowledge the
complex political context of the drafting

26. to some degree (Glendon 2006; Morsink 1999; Lauren 2003;
Waltz 2002), but the connection
between how we read that history through our understanding of
human rights is under appreciated
and too little explored. While historical knowledge of human
rights is invaluable for deflating
7
myths, our return to past events is unavoidably reflected though
the conceptual framing we carry
with us, which suggests that reading the UDHR agonistically
will change how we understand that
historical moment and provide insight into contemporary human
rights politics.3
In the consensus narrative, the General Assembly’s
endorsement of the UDHR symbolized a
break with a terrible era of world politics – based on narrow
state interests, nationalism, colonialism
and racist ideologies – and provided a cornerstone of the
foundation upon which a new international
order could be built. ‘The human rights instruments and
covenants, as conceptualized in [the]
UDHR and other major UN conventions, exhibit common

27. narrative standards based on the widest
attainable consensus among nations with diverse cultural
traditions, religious doctrines, and
ideological systems.’ (Chowdhury 2008, 349) The consensus
achieved by the UDHR, reflecting
both the content and the process of its drafting, then served as a
basis for the development of human
rights that followed.
There appears to be consensus within the UN and among states,
academics, and
human rights advocates that the UDHR is the most significant
embodiment of
human rights standards. It has been described as “showing signs
of having achieved
the status of holy writ within the human rights movement.”
Elsewhere, the UDHR
has been described generously as the “spiritual parent” of other
human rights
documents. (Mutua 2007, 553)
Even where care is taken to acknowledge the limits of the
original consensus in 1948, which
excluded colonized peoples and was opposed via abstention by
six communist states, as well as
Saudi Arabia and South Africa, this imperfect consensus is
presented as a political failing, rather
than a failure of the rights regime as such.

28. Given that eight countries abstained out of an international body
made up then of
only fifty-six states – most of which were from the West or
politically
“Westernized” – the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
was thus not born
“universal,” even for those who took direct part in the process
of its elaboration.
There is no denying, therefore, that those who had not
participated in the
negotiations and who labeled the Declaration as a “Western
product” did indeed
have a point. Having had no voice in the negotiations period
from 1946 to 1948
because they were, largely, Western colonies, Afro-Asian
countries had a valid
reason to question the legitimacy of the Declaration’s authority
over every cultural
or political system. To a lesser extent, the same logic applied to
the European
socialist states, which abstained in the vote despite the
inclusion in the document of
the social and economic rights they had firmly defended.
Nevertheless, all of them
quickly lost the grounds for their objections. (Alves 2000, 481–
482)
8
While failings are admitted, the human rights project is
redeemed by the universality the UDHR

29. later attained.
Sophisticated analyses of the UDHR point to the way in which
its break with traditional
international politics was resisted by both “Western” and “non-
Western” states – reading it as the
founding document for a new universal movement that is still
unfolding (Moyn 2010, 81–83).
Within this line of thinking, overcoming the biases of the state-
centric system is key.
Only by reiterating that human rights treaties are constructed
outcomes of
negotiations that demand change in all discriminatory and
repressive cultures, can
we stop the selective adoption of human rights and challenge all
states that give lip
service to human rights but continue to violate the rights of
their citizens, support
repressive regimes, or uphold corporate interests over human
rights and dignity.
(Arat 2006, 437)
While the UDHR itself may not represent a perfect or final
consensus, it is a pivotal starting point
for a more fully consensual and international human rights
regime – for example, paving the way
for the consensus reached on the 1993 UN Vienna Declaration
on human rights (UN General

30. Assembly 1993).
Drawing representatives from the existing major cultures,
religions, and
sociopolitical systems, with delegations from over 170
countries, in a world virtually
without colonies, the Vienna Conference was the largest
international gathering ever
convened on the theme of human rights. Its final document, the
Vienna Declaration
and Programme of Action – adopted by consensus without a
vote or reservations,
although with some interpretive statements – unambiguously
affirms, in Article 1
that: “The universal nature of these rights and freedoms is
beyond question.” (Alves
2000, 482)
The Vienna Declaration, then, completes the consensus that
justifies a world order based on human
rights. This second moment of consensus, however, essentially
confirms the universalism of the
UDHR and redeems the imperfections of the original drafting
process.
The contrasting narrative is one of ideological imposition and
political dominance. In this
narrative the US, and Western states generally, used their
political superiority after the Second
World War (WWII) to impose a new international order upon
the rest of the world (Mazower

31. 2009). This was resisted by communist states at the time and
made possible, at least in part, by the
marginal status of many of the world’s peoples still living under
colonial rule.
9
The narrow club of states in the UN at the time seriously
compromised the
normative universality of the movement’s founding document.
Antonio Cassese, the
former President of the International Criminal Tribunal for the
Former Yugoslavia,
wrote that the West imposed its philosophy of human rights on
the rest of the world
because it dominated the United Nations at its inception.
(Mutua 2007, 554)
Therefore, rather than providing a moral basis for this new
world politics, the UDHR merely
continues the dominance of the West by imposing a distinctly
liberal conception of individual
human rights on the rest of the world. This critique runs deeper
than an accusation of bare political
domination. By justifying the content of human rights through
an appeal to a universal and singular
human essence, Western powers infused the new order with

32. their own ideology. ‘The official
documents of human rights, therefore, embody a specific
cultural world-view: that of the modern
Western world, but more insidiously, in the very assumption of
‘human’ that this also entails.’
(Tascon and Ife 2008, 318) The appeal to human nature and
dignity justifies the imposition of
human rights norms on everyone. It is this universal account of
humanity and the assumed
superiority of a liberal international order, not simply the act of
exercising Western power, which is
objectionable.
This critique retains its force even if one does not assign
nefarious motives to the drafters of
the UDHR. ‘Ultimately the assumption of the natural dignity of
human being became part of the
UDHR despite the attempts by the drafters to keep the language
neutral on this topic.’ (Parekh
2007, 763) There is, it seems, an irresolvable contradiction in
the idea of human rights – it requires
an appeal to some feature of our essential humanity to justify
the legitimacy of human rights, but
that appeal is always partial (Hoover 2012). ‘Though the UDHR
is based on an essentialist view of

33. the human being, the drafters were aware of the difficulties that
come with such a basis. This
historical moment reveals the depth of the problem that we are
still trying to reconcile.’ (Parekh
2007, 764) Whether critics see room for further practical
agreement on human rights within the UN
framework, or think that the regime is deeply compromised by
its biases and inherent tensions, the
presumed universality of the UDHR is seen as a moment to be
overcome not celebrated.
10
Understanding human rights in agonistic terms suggests that we
attend to their political
content more closely, which the legislative conception of human
rights obscures with its claims to
be apolitical (Moyn 2010, 212–227). This claims is sustained by
the supposed moral consensus that
justifies human rights – famously defended by Michael Ignatieff
(2001), but which has been
challenged as limited and ideological (W. Brown 2004). An
agonistic account of rights rejects the
idea that we can achieve an apolitical moral consensus on the

34. meaning or significance of human
nature, suggesting that any such account will be partial and
contestable. Further, it focuses our
attention on the politics that follow from our account of
humanity as a moral identity, such that
even a limited political vision is still political and cannot be
taken as incontestable or inherently
desirable. An agonistic understanding of human rights suggests
that we should see the UDHR’s
drafting and signing as a pivotal moment in an ongoing debate
about human rights, which can be
understood in terms of two key issues: (1) the meaning of
human dignity, and (2) the implications
of human rights claims for the transformation of world politics.
To understand why these two issues
emerge and why the UDHR responds to them in the way that it
does, we need to appreciate the
context of the drafting – namely as a particular response to the
process of post-WWII
reconstruction. The general purpose of human rights at the time
was to affirm the significance, and
reality, of our common humanity in the face of nationalist and
racist ideologies, and as a nascent
challenge to the supremacy of state sovereignty as the

35. organizing principle of world politics.
Further, an agonistic understanding of rights undermines the
traditional narratives in which the
UDHR’s consensus provided the basis for future progress, as if
the guaranteed promise of the future
was necessarily contained in the past. Seeing the human rights
project as open to both regressive
and radical change, and progressing along plural lines of
development, undermines and complicates
criticisms that it is a limited political project imposed by
powerful states.
The debates that occurred during the drafting of the UDHR
suggest many of those involved
saw themselves as providing a foundation to build a new world
politics, that is, thinking very much
in terms of a legislative understanding of rights. My own
argument is not that thinking about human
11
rights agonistically reveals the true intentions of the drafters
but rather that adopting an agonistic
understanding we can see the drafters’ disagreements as
exemplifying the ambiguous and contested

36. nature of human dignity within the supposed consensus found in
the UDHR, and demonstrating a
self-conscious and partial effort to reconstruct the institutions
of world politics.4 In the following
section, I look at how the history of human rights is told and
how this informs our understanding of
the historical context of the UDHR before turning to the debates
that took place during the drafting
process. In the third section I focus on the debates during the
drafting process concerning human
dignity, and in the fourth section I focus on the alternative
political orders considered in the
drafting, emphasizing that the settlement that was reached was a
specific and contested response to
their contemporary problems and not the final word on the
shape of the international order. Finally,
in conclusion, I offer a brief account of the significance of this
rereading of the UDHR for how we
understand the human rights project.
2. The Contested Historiography of Human Rights and the
Context of the UDHR
How one understands the importance of the UDHR depends in
part on how one understands
the history of human rights. A dominant strain in the literature

37. searches for the deep historical roots
of the idea.
Since the phrase was consecrated in English in the 1940s, and
with increasing
frequency in the last few decades, there have been many
attempts to lay out the deep
sources of human rights... The worst consequence of the myth
of deep roots they
provide is that they distract from the real conditions for the
historical developments
they claim to explain. (Moyn 2010, 11–12)
As a result the history of human rights is often written in broad
stokes and as a progressive
narrative moving from natural rights to universal human rights.5
More rigorous historical works
examining the details of how the idea and discourse of human
rights emerged, as well as the
distinctive move to an international conception of these rights
after WWII have begun to challenge
this grand-narrative approach.6 Nonetheless, how we understand
human rights matters for how we
write and read their history.7
12

38. Does the UDHR represent an important step in the progressive
development of human rights
as a universal morality?8 If so, then it becomes a story of the
search for universal rights that provide
a single foundation for legitimate political authority – which is
very much a story of Western
political development spreading to the rest of the world
(Charvet and Kaczynska-Nay 2008, 42–78).
Or is it a disruptive event, one that grows out of a movement
advocating for international human
rights in opposition to an international order dominated by the
inviolability of state sovereignty?9 If
so, the UDHR is a central chapter in the story of the revision of
the European international order,
where sovereignty is tamed through international organizations
and treaties that articulate universal
human rights as a central pillar in a new international legal
order (Afshari 2007, 6–9).10 Or, finally,
is the UDHR a milestone in the development of democratic
politics, in which social movement use
human rights to challenge established authorities? Histories of
popular political movements,
working to realize a variety of political goals through
universalist appeals suggest that the UDHR

39. can be seen as emerging from a plurality of disparate
developments that nonetheless form an
identifiable tradition of democratic transformation (Lauren
2003, 37–70; Korey 1998, 29–50;
Kurasawa 2007, 1–22). These different ways of constructing the
history of human rights depend on
how we understand human rights.
The dominant account, leading to the view of the UDHR as a
foundational moment of
consensus, has been one of an expansive history of moral
universalism that culminates in the
utopian project of human rights in the twentieth century. A
more skeptical reading suggests that
human rights are far newer and break with past legal and moral
traditions in the post-WWII era.
Both readings, however, are tied together by a legislative
understanding of rights. In adopting an
agonistic understanding of human rights, I want to suggest that
the diverse histories we tell are the
result of the ambiguity of the idea of human rights itself. The
ambiguity of human rights is not
unique, as a matter of its historical development, but
acknowledging and even affirming that
ambiguity in our normative conception of human rights is a

40. distinctive aspect of an agonistic
approach. Further, the plural ways we can represent the history
of human rights shows how the
13
concept is contested and always political. The reading of the
UDHR I develop here is not only
concerned with the use of rights to further democratic politics,
which it supports, but also with the
contradictory uses and consequences of human rights claims.
Whatever historical understanding of rights we take up, the
specific concept of international
human rights only begins to feature in modern international law
in the late 19th century, most
notably in the Geneva Conventions addressing the lawful
treatment of wounded and captured
combatants, as well as non-combatants and civilians. An
explicit internationalist agenda, aimed at
undermining the traditional balance of power system emerges as
a significant political force after
the First World War (WWI), and while they were not formal
human rights organizations, the
League of Nations and the International Labour Organization

41. did express concern for the rights of
individuals and peoples as an important part of maintaining
international peace (Lauren 2003, 71–
102; Burgers 1992). In the inter-war period and during the
WWII the idea of human rights, and
specifically an international law of human rights, gained
momentum among intellectuals, activists
and civil society organizations. Numerous associations,
including labor unions, religious societies
and political campaigns, embraced the idea of an international
law of human rights and pushed
reluctant states to uphold them. For example political groups
such as the Commission to Study the
Organization of Peace and the American Association for the
United Nations, as well as religious
groups like the Federal Council of Churches and the American
Jewish Committee actively worked
to include human rights in the UN Charter (Korey 1998, 30–33).
Labor organizations were active
early on, including the American Federation of Labor, which
submitted a draft declaration to the
committee that produced the UDHR (Morsink 1999, 168–169).
Individually, H. G. Wells, Franklin
and Eleanor Roosevelt, Jacques Maritain, W. E. B. Du Bois and

42. Kwame Nkrumah were influential
public intellectuals calling for human rights at the time, though
ranging in their views from utopian
socialism to Pan-Africanism (Lauren 2003, 147–154). The idea
of human rights gained a degree of
plausibility and acceptability among governments as well, and
not just among the major Allied
powers using them to justify their war with the Axis powers
(Lauren 2003, 136–146 and 154–165).
14
In particular, Latin American countries were early supporters of
the development of international
human rights law, as well as former British colonies such as
Australia and New Zealand (Lauren
2003, 166–177). Also, the ongoing anti-colonial and nationalist
struggles were supportive of efforts
to affirm the right of self-determination as a central human right
(Morsink 1999, 92–129).
Focusing on this immediate context, in which the UDHR
emerges as the first official and
global human rights document, explains the institutional form
that the post-war human rights

43. movement took and the lasting significance of the UDHR. As
the UN became the primary
international organization for the creation of a reformed
international politics, it likewise became
the institution within which human rights laws would be drafted
and agreed. As important as it was,
this nascent movement to institutionalize international human
rights through the UN, in hopes of
taming the existing system of sovereign states, was hardly an
uncontested or unambiguous
development. Not only was the UN dominated by victorious
post-War powers that were broadly
supportive of the existing international order (Mazower 2009)
and resistant to including human
rights in the UN, but the idea of human rights was also
marginalised among socialist states (Moyn
2010, 39–41). This meant neither the US nor the USSR was
particularly interested in developing an
effective international human rights regime. Retrospectively,
the UDHR and the human rights
system of the UN have been framed as key developments in a
legalized and moralized international
order – and the post-war period certainly was vital in the
development of international human rights

44. law – but this obscures the marginality of human rights at the
time.
Along with these traditional understandings of human rights, as
both marginal to power
politics and giving rise to a new legalized order, the discourse
that emerged around universal
emancipation enabled a plurality of political movements that
were potentially more disruptive. The
human rights discourse informed movements that took aim at
deep-seated and wide-spread
patriarchy, racism and imperialism, which were insufficiently
addressed even by the more utopian
aspirations of the UN system. This broader notion of universal
human rights was in conflict with
the prevailing notion of sovereignty, as well as the more
reformist supporters of human rights. The
15
incoherence of the emergent human rights regime could be
taken to reflect the persistent force of
statist structures or the politically compromised nature of
human rights, but these evaluations
persist because it is assumed that true human rights will be
coherent, indivisible even, rather than

45. ambiguous and at times working at cross purposes.11
The dominant story of both the post-war human rights
movement and the founding of the
UN is told as a response to the tragedy of WWII. While I do not
want to promote the idea that the
post-war order was a great victory for the forces of justice and
order – a political mythology that is
challenged by the injustices sustained and created by this new
order (Mutua 2007, 552–557 and
619–629) – I do want to suggest that the war was the event that
gave the human rights movement
substantial force and made the UDHR a possibility. Certainly,
there had been many destructive
wars before and WWI had similarly shaken the old Westphalian
faith, but the breakdown of
international political order in WWII was more extreme, and
was part of a massive social disruption
in which the Western world found its technology turned against
life itself with staggering ferocity,
its moral superiority proved an illusion, and its institutions of
political authority under siege at
home and in the colonized world. Further, the contributions of
women and minority groups in the

46. war enabled marginalised populations to gain new experience
and knowledge, which gave rise to a
desire to see their sacrifice redeemed through political change –
as the project of rallying the world
in a “fight for freedom” against tyranny inspired those subject
to different tyrannies to continue
their fight, including African-Americans, Black South Africans,
the working class throughout
Europe, Latin American states and nations just emerging from
the yoke of empire. The old
international order was consciously being remade not just by
and for the victorious powers, but
with the inclusion of many new voices silenced by the previous
order.
The Western rights tradition was certainly not the only political
and ethical tradition that
could have responded to the loss of political legitimacy brought
on by the disorder of WWII. Yet, in
the context in which the UDHR was written that tradition was
dominant. Rights were the currency
of social and political reform in European countries –
democratic revolutions were fought in the
16

47. name of the civil rights; the working classes struggled for labor
rights; minorities claimed rights of
self-determination and equality under the law; women struggled
for emancipation using the
vernacular of rights (Ishay 2008, 85–172).12 This is not to
suggest that all struggles for social
change were expressed in a language of universal or human
rights, but it is important to note the
historical dominance of the rights tradition within powerful
states and that the idea of universal
rights spread and pluralized rapidly. Where white, Christian,
middle-class, property owning men
demanded political and civil rights in the French revolution,
suddenly Catholics, Protestants, Jews,
Women, ethnic minorities and the “lower” classes were making
their own claims in the name of
human dignity (Hunt 2008, 146–175).13 A similar process
began during and after WWII among
disadvantaged groups in Western states and among colonized
peoples (Lauren 2003, 147–154).
This should not, however, imply that a single set of universal
human rights was being progressively
realized, rather it demonstrates the persistence of exclusions
within expressions of human rights,

48. and the contestation of those exclusions. The development of
human rights has often been played
out as a struggle of the oppressed or weak against established
powers, but overcoming exclusion or
marginality is always a fragile achievement, as the powerful are
able to co-opt or rollback social
change (Stammers 2009, 160–189). This is true of the UDHR
and the international human rights
regime it helped initiate, as powerful states and international
actors can make use of the language of
rights as often as the marginalized – suggesting that we need to
be attentive to the ongoing politics
of human rights.
The actual drafting of the UN Charter challenges any sense that
the human rights vision was
dominant in post-war politics; rather it was surprising that the
call for universal rights was given as
much space in the charter as it received. In San Francisco, the
influence of smaller powers,
prominent individuals, emerging NGOs and public opinion
proved sufficient to give the idea of
universal rights an ambiguous but prominent place in the new
charter. Along with the efforts of

49. those at the conference in San Francisco, a conference of
twenty-one American states held before
the UN drafting convention expressly opposed the Dumbarton
Oaks agreement and sought to
17
include human rights in the new UN Charter (Lauren 2003,
170). Three of the participants in the
Inter-American Conference on War and Peace – Cuba, Chile and
Panama – provided early drafts
for a human rights declaration they hoped to see taken up by the
UN (Morsink 1999, 2). The rights
movement, however, was marginalized in the structure of the
new agency – relegated to the
Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) it seemed highly
unlikely that human rights would
emerge as an institutional and political force sufficient to
challenge the five permanent members of
the Security Council.
The drafting of the UDHR started shortly after the UN charter
came into effect and took
place over two years. The initial process was characterized by a
great deal of disagreement over

50. what sort of action the new UN Commission on Human Rights
(UNCHR), created within
ECOSOC, should undertake. Recommendations were made for a
declaration of common principles,
for a legally binding international bill of rights and even for a
complementary international human
rights court (Morsink 1999, 12–20). To address the question of
what kind of document or institution
to produce for the UN system, the UN Educational, Scientific
and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO) conducted a survey of prominent thinkers from
around the world on their thoughts
regarding human rights (Glendon 1997, 1155–1157). Along with
the UNESCO project, the Drafting
Committee of the UNCHR was inundated with suggestions and
drafts for an international bill of
rights (Lauren 2003, 119–211; Morsink 1999, 1–4). Latin
American governments submitted
important drafts, with the draft from Panama proving
influential, and also the American Law
Institute produced a draft declaration and a number of important
studies related to the issue
(Morsink 1999, 5–6).14
The declaration itself is properly seen as primarily the work of

51. two men. John Humphrey, an
international lawyer from Canada who served as secretary for
the UNCHR, produced the initial
draft. He drew on the hundreds of pages of material submitted
to the UNCHR, a survey of existing
national constitutions, and included an extensive bibliography
of sources (Morsink 1999, 28–35).15
René Cassin, the French representative and also an international
lawyer, then used this draft to
18
produce the document that was used in further deliberations.
The final document is structured so
that key principles that apply to the whole document, namely its
universal and equal application to
all people regardless of their political status, appear first. The
different rights are then articulated in
groups, with political, civic, economic, social and cultural
rights all appearing in turn. The final
provisions then underline the intentions of the document by
stating a general right to a secure and
peaceful international order (Glendon 1997, 1162–1173).
With a clearer sense of the ambiguous historical development

52. of human rights and the
specific context in which the UDHR was drafted, we can
analyze the drafting process as a unique
moment in the development of human rights, in part
consolidating a diffuse ideal, while also setting
the stage for further contestation and development. In the
following two sections this is done by
focusing on two key debates, first, on the meaning of human
dignity and, second, on the nature of
the political transformation human rights implied for
international politics.
3. Contested Dignity, or, Where Agreement Stops and Politics
Begins
The idea of human dignity is central in the UDHR. Parekh sums
up the issue, saying
‘Ultimately the assumption of the natural dignity of human
being became part of the UDHR despite
the attempts by the drafters to keep the language neutral on this
topic.’ (Parekh 2007, 763)
Supporter and critic alike agree that “human dignity” in the
UDHR points to the essential human
characteristics that give rights their authority, where they part
company is on whether a neutral and
consensual definition was achieved – or is possible at all. There

53. are two problems with this
understanding. First, the focus on a neutral account of dignity,
or its absence, is required by the
legislative understanding of rights, which sees them as moral
principles that determinately limit the
boundaries of politics. If we reject this view in favor of an
agonistic one, then the contestation over,
and ambiguity of, human dignity is as important as the
consensus, or lack thereof. This highlights
the second problem with conventional understandings of human
dignity in the UDHR: they only
focus on those elements emphasizing the need for, and
achievement of, consensus – leaving the
contest over the meaning of dignity under-examined. In this
section, I focus on why the drafters
19
thought human dignity was so important to the UDHR, as well
as how they disagreed about the
meaning of dignity, which suggests that rather than achieving a
consensus, the UDHR is an early
opening in an ongoing discussion of human dignity and its
significance in world politics.

54. Reading histories of the UDHR, and transcripts of the drafting
process, one is struck by how
long the drafters spent suggesting, debating and revising
individual articles. Yet, an important
philosophical conversation prefaced this practical work and
constantly re-emerged. As P. C. Chang,
the primary Chinese representative, stated in a meeting of the
UNCHR intended to define their task,
‘I am afraid when we are asserting rights, rights, and rights, we
are apt to forget the standard of
man. It is not merely a matter of getting things, getting things,
but also: what is the objective of
being a man?' (UN Commission on Human Rights 1947b) The
discussion of human dignity was
seen by many of the drafters to be a vital part of the declaration,
for it served as justification in the
preamble for the rights articulated. While others, notably
Colonel Hodgson, representing Australia,
and Hansa Mehta, representing India, were critical of the
extended philosophical debates that were
had throughout the drafting process. Yet, despite trying the
patience of some, there was an overall
sense that these philosophical issues mattered. Charles Malik,
of Lebanon, responded to Mehta’s

55. impatience with philosophical talk by underlining that ideology
informs all thought and insisting
that the UNCHR deal with such matters in the open.
Then, the honourable representative from India said that the
Charter already
contains a mention of human dignity and worth and that we
should not enter into
any ideological maze in our discussion here. Well,
unfortunately, whatever you
say, Madam, one must have ideological presuppositions and, no
matter how
much you fight shy of them, they are there and you either hide
them or you are
brave enough to bring them out into the open and see them and
criticize them.
Furthermore, it is precisely my intention to give meaning to that
vague phrase,
human dignity and worth, which is used in the Charter to give it
content and,
therefore, to save it from hollowness and emptiness. (Charles
Malik quoted in
UN Commission on Human Rights 1947e)
The discussion of dignity was important in revealing the
different views of why human dignity
justified the new human rights declared, but it did more than
that. By focusing the drafters on the
task of, as Chang put it, ‘making the standard of man
respected,’ (UN Commission on Human
Rights 1947b) the focus on human dignity clarified the problem

56. they were addressing. The
20
declaration of these new human rights was intended to affirm
universal moral principles for
international politics based not on the authority of states but the
value of human dignity. Early on
Chang grasped the novelty of what they were doing, saying, ‘we
are dealing with something which
has not been dealt with before, namely the international aspect
of equality.’ (UN Commission on
Human Rights 1947e)
While it is possible to overstate the importance of Nazi
atrocities to the UDHR drafting
(Waltz 2001, 53), the wider context of WWII was the immediate
backdrop. In particular, there was
a sense that the defense of human dignity provided by a new
human rights institution was called for
by the mistreatment of, and extreme demands placed on,
individuals (Lauren 2003, 204–205).
Assistant Secretary General, Henri Laugier, opened the 1st
meeting of the UNCHR with a clear
evocation of this purpose:

57. With your boundless devotion to the cause of human rights and
to the cause of
the United Nations, let us here gather strength for our fight
from the recent
memory of the long darkness through which we have come,
where tens of
millions of human beings died so that human rights might stay
alive, from the
memory of all those men and women who have found in their
dignity alone the
strength to sacrifice their lives in order, obstinately, to
proclaim, amidst the
depths of surrounding darkness, the presence and the
permanence of the stars.
(UN Commission on Human Rights 1947a)
The work of defending human dignity was seen as a deeply
moral task demanded by concrete
political tragedy. In particular, there was a sense that a common
humanity had to be affirmed and
that individuals protected from the power of the state. Cassin
expressed these commitments often:
We have seen and lived through a period when human society
has been
practically destroyed by the application of a concept of race, or
concept of the
nation, or concept of the volk, I will call it; and it is a most
important fact that
we should have lived to see this possibility of men crushing and
denying the
rights of man, both as communities and as individuals. I think

58. we must insist
upon this fact: that we must finally reach the fusion of the idea
of man as a
community and man as an individual. (UN Commission on
Human Rights
1947b)
The State, in other words the collectivity, has asked the
maximum from millions
of people, the greatest thing they could offer - their lives.
(Drafting Committee
1947f)
21
The sacrifice demanded by the state played a key role in
understanding both rights to membership
and welfare provisions as central to human dignity.16 This is
important because the discussion of
human dignity was not simply an abstract philosophical
discussion, but a form of practical moral
reasoning at work, articulating a moral ideal to guide political
change. Human dignity was defended
against a backdrop of real offenses – all encompassing interstate
war, mass slaughter, enormous
civilian casualties, nationalist and racist ideology, statelessness,
economic depression – and the

59. debate reflected that situation even as it revealed a pluralism of
views on how to address it.
Malik, Chang and Cassin are widely considered to be the
primary intellectual forces
involved in the drafting (Glendon 1997, 1157–1159).17 This,
however, did not mean they were of
one mind on the meaning of human dignity. In an early UNCHR
meeting, Malik focused on dignity
in terms of conscience, defined as the ability to change one’s
mind:
If we have any contribution to make, it is in the field of
fundamental freedom,
namely, freedom of thought, freedom of conscience and freedom
of being. And
there is one point on which we wish to insist more than
anything else, namely
that it is not enough to be, it is not enough to be free to be what
you are. You
must also be free to become what your conscience requires you
to become in
light of your best knowledge. It is therefore freedom of
becoming, of change that
we stress as much as freedom of being. (Malik 2000, 16–17)18
This led him to focus on the protection of persons from the
power of the state, to accord a special
place to civil society, and to support the preservation of space
for free thought, opposition and even

60. rebellion against established authority (Malik 2000, 26).
Further, he was among the strongest
advocates of human rights because he thought they ensured that
the people determined the state.
‘We intend to say that the people are active and take the
initiative in the determination of the State.
It is not as though you come to the people, offer them
something, and they consent to it. It is our
intention that originally the people, themselves, take the
initiative in determining what the state
should be.’ (Drafting Committee 1947f) So, while it is accurate
to point to Malik’s emphasis on
‘natural rights’, we see that his understanding of their
justification was hardly orthodox and
attempted to preserve, in the concept of human dignity, what he
saw as essential in human being
and becoming.19 There is a tension in Malik’s view, or perhaps
blindness, in asserting that the most
22
important freedom to protect is a person’s freedom to change
and become, while also asserting that
we can build a social order upon man’s essential nature that
does not limit that very freedom. Yet,

61. despite his essentialist rhetoric, Malik continuously put the
protection of the freedom of the person
into the context of his times.
Who is this person? This person, Mr. President, is the living,
dying man who
suffers and rebels, is scared, is often undecided, makes
mistakes, the man who
thinks, hesitates, decides, and gossips, and who needs to be
lifted when he falls.
It is the being even who blushes, laughs, and changes his mind
when he knows
better. This being, Mr. President, in his own personal dignity
and self-respect is
in danger of being drowned and obscured by political and
ideological systems of
all sorts. (Malik 2000, 60)
Whatever the consistency of his metaphysical beliefs about
human nature, Malik’s defense of
human rights was based on an opposition to forms of social
order that failed to respect persons as
feeling, thinking and creative beings increasingly subject to the
power of the nation-state, at the cost
of intermediate ties, and devalued by contemporary conditions
and ideologies.
Along with Malik, Chang was probably the most
philosophically inclined participant.20 In

62. addition to clearly articulating the task the drafters had before
them in terms of human dignity,
Chang also made important contributions the idea as it
developed in the UDHR. His primary
thought was that conscience, as an essential aspect of dignity,
involved what he called ‘two-man
mindedness.’ (Drafting Committee 1947d) The idea of two-man
mindedness implies sympathy as
fellow feeling, but also something deeper and more demanding,
what Chang described as
‘extending our consciousness to others.’ (Drafting Committee
1947d) This involved both
recognition of mutual duties between all human beings and
respect for the values of others. ‘The
definition of man is to be human-minded – namely, that
whatever he does, he thinks of the other
person as if the other person were in his place.’ (UN
Commission on Human Rights 1947b) This
entailed not only the acknowledgment of a common humanity,
but also an insistence that two-man
mindedness enabled understanding across cultural barriers and
could inspire consideration for
others. Chang, for example, insisted that reference to a
monotheistic deity be kept out of the

63. document, as this would undermine its potential universality for
non-theists (Glendon 2006, 47).
23
The idea of two-man mindedness develops dignity in a different
way than Malik’s notion of
conscience, as Chang points to an orientation that individuals
should, and can, take toward their
relationships with others. This involves, as he said, ‘the feeling
of the sense of human dignity in the
individual, that is, as an individual feels when he thinks of
equality. He feels that he is as good as
anybody else’. (UN Commission on Human Rights 1947e) This
idea goes beyond the recognition of
equality to suggest that the individual must see from the
perspective of others. Therefore, along
with asserting the freedoms and rights of the individual, the
consideration of human rights requires
determining the social ties and obligations that exist
internationally. The practical consequences of
this in the UDHR included recognition that individuals have
obligations to the community and that
states retain a degree of privilege as the political embodiment of
distinct ways of life, which was

64. reflected in several articles and shared by a number of those
involved in the drafting process.
Ronald Lebeau, from Belgium, supported Chang’s focus on both
individual freedom and duty (UN
Commission on Human Rights 1947c). ‘In the eighteenth
century the human being was the
individual whereas in our opinion, the human being nowadays is
the person who participates in the
normal life and existence of society.’ (Ronald Lebeau quoted in
UN Commission on Human Rights
1947c) Also, General Carlos Romulo, from the Philippines,
shared a concern to ‘take into account
all the different cultural patterns there are in the world,
especially in respect to popular customs and
legal systems.’ (UN Commission on Human Rights 1947c)
Cassin was the third major intellectual figure among the
drafting committee.21 While he
often expressed his agreement with both Malik and Chang, his
words reveal that he had his own
particular views. More than perhaps any other participant
Cassin felt the UDHR must respond to
the horrors of WWII and ensure dignity by affirming the
oneness of humanity and guarantee the

65. legal personality of every individual:
But the fundamental that there is a unity in human society,
society composed of
human beings which can be compared to one another, which has
the same
natural aptitudes whatever this would be, this is the most
important thing which
must be placed in our resolution. (UN Commission on Human
Rights 1947e)
24
This is a point which we have not yet examined and I think it is
appropriate.
Since we are studying the fundamental rights of man, to state
that not only must
everybody be free physically, but to state also that every human
being normally
possess rights and obligations, and, therefore, has "legal
personality." (Drafting
Committee 1947e)
While he affirmed Chang’s notion of two-man mindedness by
asserting ‘that idea of reciprocal
duties is at the foundation of the concept of fraternity,’
(Drafting Committee 1947d) one wonders if
it contained the same sense of struggling to extend one’s
consciousness to understand the

66. perspective of another. Cassin’s further remarks suggest he was
less aware of, or concerned with,
how a universal account of human dignity might impinge upon
otherness. The violent
particularlism that characterized WWII was at the forefront of
his mind and while he argued that ‘it
is quite obvious that we cannot, in our International
Organization, affirm or assert concepts or ideas
which would be special to any one nation or to any one category
of man,’ (UN Commission on
Human Rights 1947b) he expressed little doubt that each
individual must hold their universal rights,
which could be agreed upon without any imposition, as a
recognized legal person before a
representative political authority.
It is perhaps Cassin’s familiar grounding in a liberal
universalism that has lead many to see
the entire UDHR as a “Western” project. This does a disservice
to Cassin’s thought, as he was
remarkably cosmopolitan in his view, asserting that human
rights break open the state, exposing it
to scrutiny and interference. Further, he modulated the very
French idea of “Fraternity” into a
global register, looking beyond the national republic to a human

67. community that must be protected
through the establishment of international legal rights. Other
liberal members also shared his
individualistic view. Charles Dukes, the British representative,
stated that ‘the British conception of
human rights rests fundamentally on a belief in the dignity and
importance of the individual man. It
is a conception which the United Kingdom will always defend.’
(UN Commission on Human
Rights 1947b) Dr Jose A. Mora, from Uruguay, echoed this
sentiment, arguing that the individual
should be placed at the centre of international law in order to
undermine the absolute authority of
national sovereignty (UN Commission on Human Rights 1947b).
Likewise, Eleanor Roosevelt
25
spoke in individualistic terms, though it is worth noting that
she, like the other “liberal”
representatives, were concerned with economic and social rights
as well as civil and political ones,
taking it to be central to the dignity of individual that a person
had health, welfare, food and

68. income.22
It becomes clear in examining the debates over the drafting of
the UDHR that there was no
simple consensus on what dignity meant and that the contesting
ideas informed the resulting list of
rights – as well as further plans for institutionalization – in
different ways. Yet, this contestation did
not result in the victory of a single ideological view or the
creation of a practical but empty
consensus. Instead, we see a vigorous debate in which key lines
of thought emerge that played
crucial roles in the development of human rights. There was an
agreement WWII, taken as a diverse
experiential whole, revealed a grave threat to human beings in
the forms of deprivation, war,
murder, expulsion and statelessness – and, importantly, the state
was inadequate to the task of
preventing these abuses, and was in many cases a direct
perpetrator of them. This lead to a common
commitment to a shared humanity, yet even this common picture
of human dignity was painted in
many hues. Also, there was a shared sense that new political
institutions were needed to protect
people from the power of the state, again for many different

69. reasons and leading to different
suggested reforms, examined in more detail in the next section.
Attending to the ambiguity of these
early debates gives us more than a richer history of the ideas
that motivated the early stages of the
human rights project, they also provide an impetus for
reconsidering how ethical and political
theory relates to such events. It is all too common to read the
lack of consensus as a failing, or part
of a process that, ideally, will lead to consensus – this tendency
comes out of how we understand
human rights. The effort to capture a sense of the debates over
human dignity highlights the value
of an agonistic perspective, as we can understand that
contestation in ethical terms.
4. The Shape of Politics to Come: International Order and
Human Rights
The second aspect of the drafting I consider is the self-
conscious reconstruction of the
structure of world politics that the participants took on. This
was an unavoidable feature of their
26

70. work, as articulating an international set of human rights
necessarily implied that new demands
would be placed on all states. Therefore, the fundamental
distinction within legal and political
thought between domestic and international spheres was thrown
into question. Yet, even though
addressing this question is necessary to the idea of human
rights, the debates during the drafting of
the UDHR did not lead to one comprehensive set of reforms.
Conventionally, the story told about
the place of human rights in the immediate post-war era is one
of political weakness. Not only was
the inclusion of human rights in the charter of secondary
concern to the major powers, but also the
emerging Cold War rivalry marginalized human rights within
the UN (Lauren 2003, 233–270).
These accounts are accurate so far as they go, but they are
importantly retrospective and I am
interested in how the drafters understood their role in
reconstructing international politics, separated
from their eventual ineffectiveness. The appeal to the UDHR as
a founding document for a still
emerging international human rights regime is one-dimensional
and ignores plural lines of possible

71. development. Revisiting these debates, however, also
undermines an account that sees human rights
as marginal to international politics or only the tool of powerful
states – the conceptual power of
human rights is beyond such easy control.
Perhaps the most surprising thing about the debates that lead to
the UDHR, especially given
conventional criticisms that human rights were marginal to the
UN, is that the participants in the
drafting process acknowledged that declaring and
institutionalizing human rights was a necessary
part of the post war reconstruction. Also, there was a clear
recognition that such a reconstruction
would undermine conventional notions of state sovereignty and
that the international community
had a newly articulated duty of concern for individuals. These
facts were seemingly taken as given
starting points. Where there was disagreement was over what
the practical implications of this shift
in focus to individuals would be, and how far the traditional
international order would be (and
should be) undermined by a declaration of human rights.
Important points of contention were on the
necessity of an international court of human rights, the legal

72. implications of a binding convention,
27
the direct reporting of human rights abuses to the UN and
whether UN human rights institutions
would be staffed by state representatives or independent
individuals.
Hodgson and Mehta were strong advocates for a human rights
court. They saw that such a
court was essential to establishing an effective international bill
of rights (UN Commission on
Human Rights 1947c). Cassin, likewise, was a strong supporter
of supra-state legal institutions that
would confirm the international legal personality of the
individual. During the first meeting of the
UNCHR it was decided that the work of the Commission should
focus on three tasks: drafting a
declaration of principles, drafting a binding convention, and
finally drawing up provisions for the
implementation of human rights – this final task was the least
successful (UN Commission on
Human Rights 1947f).
The opposition to a human rights court (or other strong

73. independent institutions for
enforcement) was varied. It is easy enough to read the
opposition of the UK, USA and USSR as
being concerned with preserving their dominance by affirming
state sovereignty over individual
accountability. Yet, in each case there was a principled case
against such a court. The USSR was
most opposed. They not only rejected the creation of
international legal institutions that would
place the rights of the individual above those of the state in
international law, but cogently pointed
to the danger that such a move would institutionalize a standard
of civilization that would recreate
the logic of imperial and colonial authority, recently and
partially discredited, only now expressed
in terms of individual rights (Vladimir M. Koretsky quoted in
Drafting Committee 1947b). The
USSR was hardly alone in its concern that a strong international
rights regime would be dominated
by Western powers, potentially threatening international
stability and undermining the right to self-
determination of smaller and newly liberated states. Chang and
Romulo were both hesitant to
embrace a comprehensive international legal regime, and even

74. Malik was keen to emphasise the
protection small states needed, giving special emphasis to the
right of self-determination for
peoples in the UDHR (Drafting Committee 1947b; Drafting
Committee 1947c). The UK and US
were obviously less motivated by a fear of colonial imposition
and rather more concerned with the
28
danger of weakening the authority of the state as the most
effective and appropriate protector of
individual rights, though they supported the idea that human
rights provided a universal standard
for the legitimacy of states.
While it is correct that the inclusion of human rights in the UN
marked a dramatic change in
the concern for individuals, and their rights, in international
politics, the controversies that the
question of enforcement generated reveals the politics of human
rights present at the drafting.
Attending to these disagreements is valuable, not only does it
better inform our account of the early
human rights regime, but it is telling for the contemporary

75. regime as well. Hodgson, Mehta and
Cassin were correct that international institutions were needed
to enforce human rights effectively,
and the creation of such institutions in recent decades is widely
considered a positive development.
Yet, the worries expressed by socialist states and newly
liberated ones remain important, as the
institutionalization and enforcement of human rights take place
in a political arena with great power
disparities. Then, as now, the desire to protect individual rights
cannot be separated from more
partial political interests.
Early during the first meeting of the Drafting Committee a
distinction was made between a
declaration and a convention. This was done to overcome
questions regarding the legitimacy of the
committee writing a binding legal document, with the USSR
being skeptical of its authority to do
more than recommend articles for discussion and seeking
clarification of whether the
representatives were obliged to express the official position of
their government.23 Other major
powers were also cautious in establishing a binding legal
document that infringed on state

76. sovereignty. The US position, for example, was complicated by
Roosevelt’s personal support for
strong human rights institutions and official US hesitance to
agree to a document that defined state
obligations beyond those in the UN charter (Glendon 2006, 71–
72). Smaller states were concerned
with the potential effects of a human rights treaty that would
alter existing international law. In
discussing the work to be taken on by the Drafting Committee,
Dr Ghasseme Ghani, the Iranian
representative to the UNCHR, worried that a strong human
rights document could undermine the
29
stability of the established system (UN Commission on Human
Rights 1947b). These concerns led
to the decision to prepare both a declaration of principles and a
convention, implying different
procedures reflecting the different status the documents would
have.
Those countries favoring a legally binding document tried to
give priority to the drafting of
a convention. Hodgson and Mehta were strong supporters of a

77. convention, as was the UK,
represented by Dukes and Geoffrey Wilson, both of whom were
keen to specify any declared rights
in order to clearly establish subsequent changes to the legal
rights and duties of states.24 In the end,
however, the primary focus was given to a non-binding
declaration. The reasons for this were
complicated. Partly it was a matter of political expedience,
writing a non-binding document proved
less difficult, and partly a result of the difficulty of drafting
even a declaration that could garner
wide support, as the later stages of the drafting of the UDHR
proved contentious. Importantly, it
was only because the declaration did not require the UCHR to
resolve the issue of the legal standing
of a convention that it was possible for a widely accepted
international document to emerge, as its
legal and ethical ambiguity were central to its political success.
The surprising value of the UDHR
as a statement of principle capable of inspiring further and
diverse forms of political action was
most clearly perceived by Roosevelt (Glendon 2006, 173–174).
For many, this early failure to have
an enforceable legal document was a major failing of the early

78. human rights efforts of the UN, yet
it also initiated a broader human rights politics in which the
ideas and language of rights was taken
up in new contexts, making it a more democratic though less
binding document.
The other major controversies were over the shape the new UN
human rights institutions
would take. In particular, there was disagreement over whether
the UNCHR should set up
mechanisms for individuals to directly report human rights
abuses, and over the official standing of
representatives in various human rights bodies – whether they
would be state representatives or
individuals free to express their own opinions and pursue ends
set out by the UN human rights
mechanisms. What on one level is a bureaucratic debate is also
fundamental to the emerging human
rights institutions and their degree of independence from state
authority.
30
Roosevelt was a strong supporter of individual reporting
mechanisms, motivated by the

79. correspondence she received both as a private individual and as
member of the UNCHR. Speaking
of communications she had received, she said, ‘I am conscious
of the fact that human rights mean
something to the people of the world, which is hope for a better
opportunity for people in general to
enjoy justice and freedom and opportunity.’(UN Commission on
Human Rights 1947a) For her, and
other supportive representatives such as Cassin and Malik, the
UN could do vital work by providing
a forum for individuals to appeal to when they were abused or
neglected by their government.
Debates within the UNCHR, however, were rendered peripheral
by judgments higher up within the
UN structure that determined that communication of any alleged
rights abuses would be made
anonymous before the UNCHR received them and that the
UNCHR could only consult these
communications to inform their work, not press for redress
within the UN (UN Commission on
Human Rights 1947g). This stunted effort at reform was partly
inspired by the experience of WWII,
where the states had turned against their citizens in horrific
ways, but also by a developing sense

80. that responsibilities to fellow human beings suffering in far
flung locations required global
institutions. This emergent cosmopolitan structure, however, did
not survive the early debates and
the new human rights institution deferred to state authority, a
compromise fully institutionalized in
later conventions in which monitoring was done through country
reports prepared by state
authorities then passed on to the UN.
The debate over representation risks seeming even more arcane,
but it was a key issue. In
the early sessions of both the UNCHR and the Drafting
Committee there were many questions
regarding the status of representatives, did they represent
themselves or their government. Further,
the question of who could be involved in the drafting of human
rights documents was raised,
particularly, whether outside experts or UN officials not
representing governments could draft
binding documents. It was decided that they could be consulted
but authority rested solely with
state representatives. The USSR was particularly emphatic,
though the US shared this view (which
complicated Roosevelt’s own position). Further debates were

81. over who would participate in the
31
human rights institutions that were being set up. Malik and
Cassin, in particular, were supportive of
having individuals capable of expressing their own views in
these institutions, as well as the
inclusion of experts and relevant organizations.25 Again, these
matters of procedure would have
major effects on the kind of institution the UN became and how
much power the suggested human
rights standards would have. The interests of state sovereignty
won this struggle as well and further
entrenched a UN approach to human rights that was dominated
by the rights of states, but the
contest was hardly decisively ended – the UN has since adopted
reforms to include non-state
representatives and to improve their responsiveness to abuses
reported to its various human rights
bodies.26 At the same time, these debates illustrate the depth of
the divide between different
understandings of human rights – between those that preserve
the authority of states and those that

82. seek an international politics defined by individual rights – and
that they may be irresolvable,
suggesting that a more global human rights regime must involve
a profound political transformation
unlikely to come about through moral suasion or piece-meal
change.
While the success of more fundamental reconstructions of
international political order was
limited, small and important changes were made. Further, the
contests seen in these early debates
have continued to be important for the development of human
rights. Two key changes are worth
focusing on. Whatever the failings of the early human rights
institutions and documents to
overcome the priority given to state sovereignty, there was a
revolutionary change simply in giving
international legal status to individuals. Cassin was the most
clearly aware of the significance of
this change, and the most vociferous advocate of
institutionalizing it. Also, the legal person that
emerged was defined as importantly equal; the significance of
the focus on non-discrimination in
the UDHR, at that time, is hard to overestimate. Not only was it
a response to the racist ideologies

83. of the defeated Axis powers but it challenged a variety of
practices that embarrassed the victorious
powers as well. The UDHR’s insistence on non-discrimination
gave support to the decolonization
movement, bolstered women’s rights movements, challenged
racist policies in South Africa and the
Unites States, and empowered those opposed to nationalistic
politics. While the legacy of this
32
institutionalized legal individual is not purely positive, these
changes were historic and altered
international politics in profound ways.
Also, the UDHR enshrined the equal sovereignty of states,
while also making respect of that
sovereignty dependent upon respect for human rights. At the
time these were seen as important
victories for colonies fighting for self-determination and small
states, long made insecure by the
actions of powerful states. Further, the focus on the conditions
of legitimate sovereign authority
spoke against the unmitigated power of state officials and was
optimistically seen as a challenge to

84. despotism, totalitarianism and systematic forms of oppression
and deprivation. However, it is
important to appreciate the sorts of politics it was thought
would invalidate a state’s sovereignty at
that time. Those involved were concerned with the systematic
forms of abuse enabled by the notion
of absolute state sovereignty and the deprivation and insecurity
brought about by modern
economics and war, these concerns were especially shared by
Malik, Santa Cruz and Cassin during
the drafting process (Drafting Committee 1947f). This resulted
in a focus on political reform in
favor of democratic representation, the elimination of
oppressive forms of international control
(colonial and imperial), the importance of the provision of
social and welfare rights, and
establishing the guarantee of citizenship. Yet the fact that these
reforms were broadly liberal or
social-democratic says more about the context of the UDHR as
an ethical response to the problem
at hand than it does about the essential nature of the idea of
human rights.
In the end, my concern is less with the role of the UDHR in
establishing the UN human

85. rights regime that actually emerged and more with the sort of
questions about international order
that it enabled. Two features of this debate are particularly
important. First, that this sort of self-
conscious reconstruction of international politics is a necessary
consequence of human rights as an
idea. Cassin was right that giving the individual central
importance in international politics, by
claiming rights in the name of a common humanity,
fundamentally transforms those politics, but
the final shape that reconstruction takes is not certain.27 This is
the second feature of the debate I
want to emphasise: the victory of state interest in the early
period and the revitalization of UN
33
human rights institutions after the Cold War were not necessary
developments. This is a particularly
important point for human rights supporters that see the UDHR
as a foundational document upon
which a grand edifice has progressively been built up – our
current human rights politics is not the
unfolding of some process begun in 1948. Its development is
clearly influenced by the ideas and

86. institutions that did emerge, but the opening for reconstruction
created by human rights does not
close. Just as the debate around dignity is ongoing and
developing in diverse ways, so to is the
human rights politics that was begun in earnest with the drafting
of the UDHR.
5. Conclusion
Looking to the historical origins of human rights – both as a
broad tradition of political
thought and as a specific international development in the post-
war era – suggests that an agonistic
understanding of rights is in some measure plausible and also
that it allows us to rethink
conventional understandings of human rights. The key lines of
inquiry developed here, looking to
the plurality of values that are supported by an appeal to human
dignity and the different lines of
political development it enables, suggest that human rights
remain an ambiguous political project,
as much as a singular and utopian moral vision.
For those that are critical of the Western origins of human
rights – the negative effects of
which are exemplified in coercive practices of intervention

87. justified as securing human rights,
hierarchical relationships justified in terms of development and
good governance, and the
privileging of a individualistic liberal subjectivity over all
others – rereading the history of the
UDHR should give pause to any impulse to simply reject human
rights. Acknowledging that human
rights open up a discourse over the significance of humanity as
a political identity and confront us
with the challenge of creating a legitimate order in world
politics also acts as an invitation to join in
that contest and not to cede the emancipatory potential of
human rights to dominant powers.
Upendra Baxi warns that ‘[n]o contemplation of open and
diverse human rights futures may remain
innocent of their many histories,’ which suggests that
understanding human rights as an always-
34
contestable project undermines the myth ‘that human rights
traditions are “gifts of the west to the
rest.”’ (2007, xxix)
Human rights advocates, on the other hand, should be cautious

88. of their own capacity for
myth making, especially if human rights politics are to retain
their capacity to challenge existing
power. The promise of a remade international politics that
places the protection of individuals at the
centre of legitimate authority is hardly a dream realized and the
Janus-faced embrace of human
rights by dominant states risks the dangers of
institutionalization, highlighted by Neil Stammers
(2009), in which the transformative demands of rights are
reduced and made acceptable to existing
power. Along with a wariness of established powers keen to
make strategic use of human rights, we
must also be alive to the danger of a lack of self-reflexivity in
supporting human rights. Returning
to the controversies surrounding the UDHR, and understanding
those contests as the start of a new
human rights politics rather than a founding moment, suggests
that we need to attend to the fact that
each articulation of human rights standards creates exclusions at
the same time, such that a liberal
human rights vision, for example, may run counter to the vision
of human rights inspired by
socialist aspirations or the struggles of indigenous peoples.

89. Whether we see the pre-eminence of
human rights as a negative or positive development in
international politics, reading the drafting
and adoption of the UDHR as something less than the very
beginnings of contested and diverse
political project does a disservice both to the potentials and the
risks in supporting human rights.
1 What I am terming the legislative conception of rights is a
generalization of a number of different accounts of what
human rights are and how they are justified, but which share a
common logic in their justification – namely that of a
moral authority outside of, and above, politics that gives
legitimacy to the law and its enforcement. See Michael
Walzer’s work (Walzer 2007, 1–21) for a similar account of this
legislative conception of rights.
2 Agonism is most basically the idea that politics and ethics are
defined by the persistence of disagreement, which
means that conflict is inherent part of social life – the challenge
of agonism is to create a politics and an ethics in which
conflict is transformed into contestation between parties that
can nonetheless coexist – what Ernesto Laclau and Chantal
Mouffe characterize as the move from antagonis tic to agonistic
relationships (Laclau and Mouffe 2001; Mouffe 2011).
In the realm of rights, an agonistic understanding focuses on the
plurality of moral claims that we can make on political
authority (Connolly 2005) and the ongoing democratic
contestation that those rights are a part of (Honig 2009) – this
involves moving away from Ronald Dworkin’s influential
notion of rights as trumps (Dworkin 1978), to a conception
of rights as ethico-political claims that make and remake both
the institutions of political authority and the contours of